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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29878206">There May be a Line to be Found</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indefinite_article/pseuds/Indefinite_article'>Indefinite_article</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adventure, Animal? Death, Fictional Anthropology, Fix-It, Gen, Original Mythology, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Semi-prophetic Folk Tales, There be Things about, They're monsters but I'm depicting them as basically animals with magic, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, World Travel, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:47:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,308</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29878206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indefinite_article/pseuds/Indefinite_article</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The planet is dying, the lifestream too infected to recover or even migrate.  As a last resort, Gaia takes the human most connected to Them and Their Weapons and sends him back in time to eliminate the Calamity before it reawakens. Vincent knows what he must do, but travelling across a world that remembers the old tales, dogged at every step by those he once loved and fighting against his own inner demons all the way, the journey will be far from easy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chaos &amp; Vincent Valentine, Lucrecia Crescent &amp; Grimoire Valentine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. An Awakening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because you can never have enough time travel fics in a fandom. This is a more ambitious piece, but I've got it all planned out ahead of time. I'm hoping I'll be able to do around weekly updates, but it's not a guarantee. I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lucrecia is caught up in the childish urge to press her face against the crystal. She knows that she won’t see anything, knows that, with how they were destabilising it, the mako could very well poison her. But still, that childlike excitement of <em> finally finding something </em> held her in its grip.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Grimoire steps up beside her, silent but for the clacking of his boots. “It feels like you could almost see it.”</p><p>“Like if you could look just a little closer, get exactly the right combination of lenses, you’d see a hunched silhouette floating in those crystals,” she agrees. </p><p>“Unfortunately we’ll have to make do with the scans, full melting is just a few days off and the techs don’t want anyone near until it’s all drained,” he says, gesturing with his head, pausing when she hesitated. “Walliams got one of the townsfolk to write down some of that Nibel immortality myth you were so interested in?” he offers.</p><p>“The one that refers to Chaos and the one that bestowed the immortality as separate entities?” She immediately turns. “And claims the site of the Manor to be holy grounds, but only because of what <em> will </em> be built there?”</p><p>“Just the bit about Chaos I’m afraid, but you can always ask about the Manor when we get back.” </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Vincent only wakes up properly as the world around him starts to melt. He’d had a fuzzy sort of awareness for a while, gentle green-tinged dreams filled with purpose and meaning simply placed into his mind, but Gaia was never a mortal sort of being and They could never replicate them well enough to form words. So he wakes up in slowly liquidating mako with the dream-certainty that he was back in time with a task and the most dangerous and spiteful of the voices in his head his only source of more information.</p><p>
  <b>The task is to destroy the Calamity and take measures against a similar threat ever getting as far. </b>
</p><p>
  <em> I am aware. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Then why are we still here? If we manifested wings we could easily tear our way out.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> I am still here because there is still something walking outside of the mako. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Why does that matter?</b>
</p><p>
  <em> It matters because I have no idea when or where we are and the wrong people seeing the wrong things could complicate this matter very much. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>We could kill them very easily. They are not expecting an attack from our direction.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> That is not a sustainable or reliable strategy. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>We are immortal. Our skills will only grow. </b>
</p><p>
  <em> That- quiet. I need to listen. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>A pebble falls, skittering against the rough wall. His eyes track it even as his ears are pricked for any new sounds. It settles next to one of the Shinra machines humming against the crystals. There is a moment of quiet, and he moves again, darting to the papers left haphazardly across the fold-out tables.</p><p>
  <em> [ μ ] - εγλ 1972.  The year Father died. I’m a rookie Turk. Work on Midgar hasn’t started yet… I doubt even Barret has been born at this point. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>We should not alter the world too drastically. We should ensure the ones that defeated the Calamity last time will still be born.</b>
</p><p>He carefully sorts through the papers, trying not to think of butterfly effects and probability and the thousand little things that make a person. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> The goal is to excavate the shape within the crystals, believed to be some ancient idol to Chaos, in connection with the legends surrounding it awakening in a ‘cave of flowing rock’. The patterns on the igneous rock of the mountains could be taken to look like flowing liquid and they are rather pronounced around the cave. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>They will certainly notice him being gone then. If this is the cave he’s thinking of, if he has simply taken Chaos’s place in the past, he’ll need to obtain the Protomateria. If its influence now extends to him… he has spent enough time without full control of himself. <br/><br/></p><p>
  <em> We don’t seem to have found the activation requirements of the oddly large materia found in the initial excavation. It is being stored in a modified high-power materia storage container.  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>There. Now he just needs to- His hands grip the page, threatening to tear it with slowly lengthening claws. His eyes snap down to the employee list lying just underneath it, catching the reflection of their own yellow glow. He does his best to avoid focusing them, but Chaos has spent enough time in his head to force control of that too and look directly at the top.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <em> Designated head researcher: Grimoire Valentine  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Deputy head researcher: Lucrecia Crescent </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <b>You can’t avoid it. The benefits of knowing how they may act far outweigh those of remaining unbiased.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> I wasn’t- </em>
</p><p>
  <b>You were.</b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Lucrecia slips through the camp, breathing hard in the cold morning air and straining her eyes to see through the long, dark shadows of the pre-dawn.  She grips her flask of coffee tighter as she stumbles over a jutting rock on the small track that leads to the outcrop above her tent. Finally reaching the top, she throws down her blanket and settles her papers on the clipboards she brought up to read through and make notes on. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>She comes back to herself when the sunlight glints off one of the clips to her right, bringing her attention to the beautiful yellowish light reflecting off the thin clouds above her. A quick fumbling around for her camera later, she’s just in position for a photo when there’s a cry from below. She turns, startled, to see Walliams running from the storage tents and a massive red beast with five of its six hands full of the little materia storage boxes. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>She can’t do anything, too far away and too unskilled to do anything but watch, but as she looks closer through the zoom of her camera she notices something. The head, with six long crimson goat horns. The tattered wings, clawed at every tip, too heavy for the thing underneath to do anything but hunch forward as it spread them. The six arms, one decorated with a pink ribbon and another golden and shining like metal. The feet, strangely pointed into single, similarly golden, claws. All of the inconsistencies between what the scans showed of the thing in the crystals and classical depictions of Chaos, there fitting seamlessly into this creature as it flew away toward the east. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>*</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>The gunfire chases them across the mountains, dying off as they duck into a valley. </p><p>
  <b>We have been seen. By a camp full of Shinra scientists. In a very recognisable form.  They may have taken photos.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> To divert attention. If they keep looking for me they won’t find the stagnant mako. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>And Lucrecia will have significant proof of the experiment’s success.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> She was instrumental in the success of Project J, if her research follows another path Sephiroth will likely never be born. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>It will take more than that to erase a potential existence. </b>
</p><p>
  <em> Then we will do more. </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Absorbed in the inner argument, Vincent doesn’t notice the circling Valron until they begin their dive. Three sets of purple claws slam into the snow as he jumps aside, reaching for a rifle on his hip that’s no longer there. They take the opportunity to recover, yellow wings flapping for stability as they stand up into fighting stances. He’s still skilled though, so three shots past the flailing limbs from the Shinra-issue handgun he stole knock them to the ground but another three are needed to put them out of their misery. </p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>He’s left panting, ears ringing as the shots echo around the valley, with the dawning realisation that <em> this will not be enough </em> . That he is stuck in a time long lost to the fog of his memory, with only this simple handgun and a paltry supply of bullets, without friends or allies or even  <em> contacts </em> , unless he borrows them from his past self. The idea of someone finding out who or what he is brings bile to his throat, accompanied by the pain and helplessness and incessant <em>  beeping </em> of Hojo’s labs.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>So, no. No talking to his past friends and loved ones, not until he has a background and a history and an explanation as to why he looks so much like the youngest son of the Valentine family. Not identical, Chaos’s influence has ensured that, but enough that Veld, his closest friend and a damn good Turk besides, would certainly notice something amiss and it wouldn’t take more than a few hints and carefully placed questions to bring everyone else to the right conclusion.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>And then. What does that leave him? His journey north will not be without danger and he cannot go without a reliable weapon to ward off monsters.</p><p>
  <b>We are capable of tearing apart most things that may cross our path.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Not subtly. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>The Death Penalty was not subtle either.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Bullets are a weapon that any human could use, claws are not. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Then we go to a human settlement and we obtain a weapon of similar quality.</b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Chaos is right. His best bet is to head to a town or city and buy a quality gun there. He’ll need money of course but if he sets himself up as a travelling monster hunter? Claim a run-in with a more powerful monster as a reason for his lack of supplies, with some strategic wear and tear on the handgun to make it look like a last-resort spare, and he’d have a good cover. He could do some business selling monster parts to villages along his way, setting himself up with some goodwill and contacts by taking care of the problems Shinra has yet to branch out and take care of at this point in time.</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>He looks down to the Valron and is crouching down to butcher them with the claws on his left hand when he notices something. The spines on the smallest one… they’re starting to glow green. </p><p>
  <b>The lifestream is much stronger now. It will take the bodies faster than we are used to.</b>
</p><p>He shakes his head, a smile rising to his face unbidden at the sight.</p><p>
  <em> I...forgot. Forgot that it used to be better. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Then you will learn again. </b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
</p><p>Valuable parts in hand and wary of staying in one place for too long, he calls out Chaos’s wings, feeling his awareness spread down his cloak until it splits and becomes his own limbs. He flaps them a few times before taking flight, magic twisting over them in the semi-instinctual way he learned to borrow from Chaos in those last few years. Before resetting it all became the only option Gaia could see.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You might notice that I redesigned Chaos a little, I took some inspiration from other depictions of Chaos in Final Fantasies and there are of course some changes drawn from Vincent himself. I've done the same for the other limit breaks and more creatures that will come into play later.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Nightmares of Past Futures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here we have some more insight into where Vincent is, emotionally.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The signs of widespread decline had started small but accelerated fast. In farms far away from reactors, vulnerable plants died at the first frost, the dogs and cats had smaller litter sizes, stillbirth rates went up. By the time farmers were reporting their difficulty in sprouting certain crops to the limited network of the WRO, there were already some suspicions and a survey was issued.</p><p> </p><p>The results it provided soon painted a disturbing picture. Exponential deterioration of harvests, of regrowth after fire, pollinator and pest populations dropping as well. It was clear that the Lifestream was still crippled, and no one knew how to restore it. </p><p> </p><p>There were no more Ancients, no more miraculous flowers and springs, so the WRO turned to science. There were doubts about how most research efforts to restore the Lifestream were staffed by ex-Shinra scientists. But by the time the first assisted plant growth was bearing fruit people were desperate for any results.</p><p> </p><p>Diets had turned mostly carnivorous, with grains, fruit and vegetables becoming more and more scarce, with some desperate and isolated villages turning to eating monster flesh. Even after the APG greenhouses were established, they couldn’t produce the same amount of food as had been eaten before. What they did grow was strictly rationed out to try and fight the many nutrient deficiency disorders emerging throughout the continents. </p><p> </p><p>Vincent watched all of this with a heavy heart, abstaining from eating as much as his immortal body could take without falling into hibernation. He took to using Chaos’s wings to fly medical supplies to isolated areas and deliver other emergency help, so he saw the worst of what was happening. And he saw long before it became clear in the charts that it was not helping. </p><p> </p><p>Even though all mako pumping operations had ceased, even though the many deaths should be returning power to the lifestream, growth rates kept going down. More research was conducted, desperation tinting the efforts to find out what, exactly, had gone wrong and how they could fix it. The WRO was dedicating every spare resource to discover a cure.</p><p> </p><p>Vincent, if he was honest with himself, knew what it was, what was apparent from his long flights over never-rotting dead forests with an unknown sense just beyond his conscious access. The planet wasn’t letting the Lifestream return. There was a sentient will strangling all routes to growth, keeping all the energy bottled up inside. </p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know what it was planning, but he selfishly hoped he wouldn’t survive it. He had spent too long wandering through lifeless wastes, cursing his immortality as he starved without dying, carrying a pack that would not be so heavy without his knowledge of the lives resting on its safe delivery. Oftentimes, he would arrive to find that there were not so many doses needed, because most had succumbed before he arrived. </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Now, before the reactor blows and the Gold Saucer is built, Corel is the best bet for a high-quality monster-hunting shop. He’s been facing and will face too many changes and challenges to be anything less than his best, so sleep is a must. If he plans to at least try and keep up the pretence of being a normal human it’ll have to be at night. It isn’t much of a stretch on Shinra’s part to think Chaos is nocturnal from his appearance, so it’ll act as another layer of cover. He’s adept enough at sleeping rough that he could make do even without much equipment, but he’ll need cover of some sort to avoid being noticed from above in the scree and scrublands.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Let me find a cave.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Why? </em>
</p><p>
  <b>I am sensitive enough to the flow of the Lifestream to have some idea of the landscape.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> I have final say. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Of course.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>The cave Chaos chooses is surprisingly free of previous habitation, without even dry dung to suggest residents.</p><p>
  <b>There is a mako spring deeper in. The animals know better and there are no monsters here that could survive contact.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> And us? </em>
</p><p><b>We are more likely to affect the mako.</b> </p><p>
  <em> Very well then. We head out at sunrise. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>With Chaos’s comment worming its way into his head, Vincent arranges his cloak against the wall for maximum defensibility and settles himself for the night. His mind spins with plots and strategies, falling into contingencies, then spiralling down to evacuation plans, finally falling unconscious before he catches himself getting lost in worry.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Vincent’s dreams are stained with the dark reddish-brown of dried blood. They are filled with tinny, echoing screams recorded by a microphone too far away to register nuance and played back by a speaker long rusted beyond the point of clear audio. They are punctuated by the inconsistent tearing of inhuman claws through innards. And, every so often, he tastes that sweet metallic flavour soaking his tongue. </p><p> </p><p>Even as he grows more lucid they torment him. Laughter echoing down the bowels of Deepground. A voice declaring him to be the biggest monster present. His head echoes with the whispers and rumours that sprang up in the wake of the battle, conflicting stories that all claimed to describe what really killed the Tsviets and destroyed Omega. Accusations of a horned beast covered in blood-soaked fur. Whispered horror stories of a humanoid figure with ragged wings and golden claws. Still more of a rogue Metamorphose killing for spite and bloodlust. </p><p> </p><p>They play against more complete scenes too, stumbling through a field of mutilated corpses, just enough out of focus to obscure the causes of death. A cannon thrown with such force to send its blunt end through a man’s ribcage. His eyesight going blurry. Red haze covering faces first, spreading down to cover bodies until he has no idea what he’s fighting, let alone who.</p><p> </p><p>He knows that they were unconnected incidents, that he has never betrayed his personal codes since he left that coffin for the last time, but it doesn’t take much to twist them into a new narrative. Doesn’t take much to take events just a little further, over the precipice to horror. </p><p> </p><p>And even as he wakes up it stays, until he realises that it is not all a figment of a dream. His arms are bound to his sides by their own strength, weighed down by the claws adorning his fingers, his neck bent at an unnatural angle by whatever foul shape his head has taken. Most foreboding of all, he feels limbs not his own, shivering and buffeting against an unknown force. Bracing himself for one of the scenes that have graced his nightmares ever since he knew his monsters could take control from him, he gathers his strength and pushes his awareness to his eyes as hard as he can.</p><p> </p><p>It gives way surprisingly easily, whatever was holding them stepping aside and leaving him blinking from the sense suddenly returned to him.</p><p><b>You’re awake.</b>  </p><p>His lungs heave heavy against the thin air, speeding to match his emotions as soon as they are within his grasp.</p><p>
  <b>What are you-</b>
</p><p>His arms fall from their position and reach up around his shoulders, claws slicing through cloth and digging into flesh.</p><p>
  <b>Why are you-</b>
</p><p>He grabs for all the things that feel <em> wrong </em> about his body and makes to pull them in and back to a more human form when it resists. The first piece of resistance to his commands, the thing in control of him suddenly slams down their will and refuses to let him change his body any more.</p><p>
  <b>Stop!</b>
</p><p>It doesn’t let go, leaving him to breathe and calm down until his eyes focus and he starts to notice what he’s been seeing and feeling. His eyes take in the spotty clouds below him, the scrublands below them, the mountains looming in the distance behind it all. He registers the rushing against his skin as wind, the pulling at his hair as his hairband tying it back, the strange limbs at his back as wings. </p><p>
  <b>Why did you try to retract the wings? We could have fallen!</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Why are you flying? </em>
</p><p>
  <b>You said we were leaving for Corel at sunrise.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> When was that? </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Sunrise was around two hours ago.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Give me full control of your wings and tail. </em>
</p><p>Vincent feels some hesitance as the being within his body takes a moment to consider this, before the iron grip on Chaos’s limbs slowly fades, allowing him the leeway to guide himself down through the clouds. </p><p> </p><p>They land at the borders of the Corel desert proper, about a day’s walk to the town for someone with his enhancements. Faster if he flies, or adds more legs to his body plan, but he… can’t risk it so close to civilization. Especially not with the possibility of a further chase.</p><p> </p><p>Mind made up, he slips to the ground and heads toward the main route into Corel from the east. He pulls out what he stole from the Shinra camp, calculating how much he can eat without crossing the line from ‘seasoned hunter low on supplies’ to ‘unprepared starving idiot’. Less than would truly soothe his snarling stomach, but food is mostly just comfort to him nowadays.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t speak, internally or externally, as he walks, just runs through his cover and what he needs to do to validate it. In this time, with governance just becoming more than localised, village-wide affairs, but before Shinra’s almost total monopoly, it is much harder to establish a surface-level identity with just a few faked papers but any good quality one should leave little room for discovery. </p><p> </p><p>Of course, he didn’t have the resources and connections to properly create one yet, but some confidence and the right knowledge demonstrated should get him far enough that he’d be able to discard it without repercussions.</p><p> </p><p>So he was Damian, hailing from Cosmo Canyon but having left to travel for a personal reason. He was willing to divulge that he was looking for something if he was pressed, and might even mention the North Crater closer to his goal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Now that we have the name Vincent will be going by, I'll only use Vincent a few more times before switching permanently to Damian for clarity's sake.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Unexpected Attitudes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time Corel is in view, he has calmed down and is able to properly take in the coal mining town that had raised Barret. That <em> will </em>raise Barret, once he’s been born sometime in the next few months. Vincent smiles sadly to himself, remembering the impassioned rants the big man had given the camp regarding its destruction. There isn’t a reactor here at all yet, and he wonders if the Barret of this future would curse him more for preventing its building than the Barret of his past would for not doing so. He pushes the thought aside, for all that his collar hides his face, mourning would be too recognisable and out of place an expression for who he will pretend to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Excuse me?” he softly asks a woman unloading crates by the entrance to the town. “Where would I find a high-quality weapons store? I am in need of a high power gun and ammunition.”</p><p> </p><p>She turns and assesses him critically. “A gun?”</p><p> </p><p>“I lost my primary one in an altercation with a monster, and need a replacement,” he clarifies, keeping to a polite but unsure tone.</p><p> </p><p>She raises an eyebrow, “An ‘altercation’ huh?” Her gaze focuses on something and she remarks, “Guess if it could take care of such heavy-duty armour, a gun would be lost pretty easy.”</p><p> </p><p>He follows the line of her eyes and, yes, around his sabatons and his left arm, where he hadn’t been as careful as the metal needed about incorporating it into Chaos’s form, it looks like the pieces of plated armour were clawed and gouged. Almost as if they have been taken from a full, or at least more complete, set that had to be left behind. “I wasn’t wearing it at the time, fortunately,” he offers, with a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Then you’re lucky, I’d reckon.” She turns to point into town. “You’ll need to make a deal with the Wallaces if you want stuff that’ll hold up nearly as well. Beau’s reaching the end of her third trimester and can’t do all of her usual jobs, so they might be willing to part with some of their stock if you help out.” At his questioning look, she goes on, “They don’t run a <em>weapons</em> shop exactly but they sell the items monsters drop and the stuff you need to get ‘em, they’re the best you’re gonna get at such short notice.”</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The Wallaces are, in retrospect, a lot like less angry Barrets. No less protective, no less loyal, no less determined to do right by those they considered friends, but not angry. He’d entered their shop as they were closing up, awkwardly rapping on the half-open door as befitted the uncertain young hunter he was portraying. Their expressions as they looked up from whatever whispered conversation they were having over the counter had all of the wariness and defensiveness Barret would give to anyone entering Seventh Heaven late at night but didn’t stay that way. They quickly smoothed out to smiles, curious as to why a stranger would enter their shop at that time, but not hostile.</p><p> </p><p>They were never hostile, Vincent - Damian, stick to the cover - reflected. They were warm and kind and even when his state implied there was a dangerous monster lurking nearby, a risk to their child that would have Barret urging a fight, they never lost that sense of easy confidence about them.</p><p> </p><p>And perhaps that was what Barret had lost, or never had, that certain knowledge that they were going to be okay. Not because things wouldn’t be hard, or they wouldn’t have to fight if they were, but because there was a safety net. They were not alone and they knew it, strong fighters in their own regard but stronger together, with the assurance that the rest of the town would help if they asked. </p><p>Damian is hit by a sudden surge of aspirational envy, lying in the Wallaces’ spare bed, startling him with the depth of it until he realises it is not his own.</p><p>
  <b>My apologies.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> What would a monster want from the Wallaces’ life? </em>
</p><p><b>I don’t know. </b> <b> <em>I </em> </b> <b>would want their connection.</b></p><p>
  <em> Connection? </em>
</p><p>
  <b>I do not know how else to put it. Not without sending sensations directly into your mind.</b>
</p><p>
  <em> Do not. </em>
</p><p>
  <b>I would not do such a thing without your permission. At least, not now I can ask for it.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>He huffs out a sigh and turns on his side. The Wallaces had offered him a pistol, not unlike the Quicksilver he once used, a simple pistol but a powerful one, in exchange for the Valron pieces he harvested and some help with the roof. It once held the beginnings of a rodent infestation, which they had dealt with quickly, but now it needed some patching up and Beau was too pregnant to get up to the roof.</p><p> </p><p>They had even offered their spare bed and some clothes to wear while they washed his own. Damian was… not suspicious, knowing that he may have just misjudged what was going on, that there were a thousand variables that could influence how people acted toward him. But there was at least <em> something </em> that he didn’t expect about how the people of Corel treated him, a kind of wariness and interest that melted into sympathy once he passed whatever assessment they were giving him.</p><p> </p><p>It had an almost nostalgic feeling, not that he could place what it reminded him of. Perhaps it was how certain people tended to treat Cloud, though he often, out of the corner of his eye, saw a sort of sadness from those that did so. Or perhaps the nostalgia was just for the herbal scent on the sheets. Barret had that sort of smell to him, though he had lost it the further their journey took them. The thoughts were soon chased out by others, though, and by the time he falls asleep, he has forgotten the notion entirely.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Let it be known that Beau Wallace is no fool. She had lived her life with the desert, not always staying with its bounds, but with its constant presence at her back. And she, like many a hunter so tethered, knew the land she had built her life on. She knew enough to know to never try to predict it, to never get too comfortable, too complacent, and she knew to always pay the proper respect.</p><p> </p><p>She was not the sort to believe in a god, not the sort to worship, but she knew that there were things out there that had abilities and powers far beyond what a human could achieve. She’d even fought a few, back when she was younger and less learned. It was never an act of worship when she whispered thanks for the lives she took or when she left the entrails in that hollow just far enough away from the village or even when she took special care not to damage the dry, thorny bushes that littered the desert.</p><p> </p><p>There were fickle creatures hidden among the dunes and underneath the ground, and not showing the proper respect may not invite divine retribution, but it would certainly encourage a mauling. And the people of Corel knew it, even those that didn’t wander past the town borders knew too much of the coal mines to dismiss monsters as wild beasts. No, Corel knew to respect the <em> other </em>, though they wouldn’t dare put a name to it.</p><p> </p><p>So their treatment of the red-draped man who emerged from the sand was not as much a surprise to her as it was to him. Of course he tried to hide it, behind a soft voice and a ducked head, but she had dealt with too many conmen and thieves to not notice the opportunities he was opening with his words. She saw him laying out his strategies, establishing a background, a point of connection, an item of curiosity, even an excuse for why he was in such a position in the first place. Settling himself in a position, entrenching himself to fight for every last bit of ground.</p><p> </p><p>And when his uncertainty was met with clarification and his initial bargain met with acceptance, well, she was certain the shock that crossed his red eyes was not feigned. Of course she didn’t know how dangerous he really was, not even if the past he had slipped into their conversation with a familiarity that spoke of rote memorisation was fabricated or stolen.  </p><p> </p><p>But Beau Wallace is no fool, and she knows the desert. So when the desert produced a wraith in a red cloak, dressed in armour clearly broken from the inside and with eyes that glowed with their own faint red light. And when that wraith had the shape of a man, one whose eyes caught on every greenery-filled window box, who was so shocked at kindness from a stranger as to lose his grip on the carefully-crafted facade he wore, who paused in the doorway of their house to just breathe the scents through his mouth with shining eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Well, then Beau would treat him with the same kindness and respect she would for any fellow fighter who hadn’t seen safety in a long time. And so would the rest of the town. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I imagine Shinra's propaganda and we're-creating-more-problems-than-we-solve-but-you're-still-paying-us-to-solve-them business model would change feeling towards monsters and monster hunting a lot. Add that to the apocalypse Damian's coming from, and he is pretty caught off-guard by the profession being respected and the people having resources to spare.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Paternal Connections</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They do the repairs the next day, Eric Wallace handling the actual fixing and Damian bringing the supplies up to him. If they notice that the jumps he uses to climb and the lightness he lands with aren’t quite within the realms of human ability, they don’t mention it, perhaps dismissing it as a quirk of a limit break or materia. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He spends the time listening to Eric talk, guiding the conversation to the standards of hunting and harvesting monsters in this time. He may have left his time as a Turk behind, but the training for operating in unknown areas remains useful. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Of course, they did assume that it would be done with a partner, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thinks to himself, suddenly wondering how his old partner Veld is doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <b>You are not alone. And you know how he is doing. We have not changed so much as to affect his life.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Pointedly pushing out Chaos’s input, he refocuses on Erik’s words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And of course there’s this order from Costa del Sol for Cokatolis and Needle Kiss feathers, never mind how cold Mt. Corel will be at this time of year, and the potential hypothermia risk if the hunter gets paralyzed!” The man has gotten caught up in a rant about the lack of understanding of the risks of monster hunting from the more secure city dwellers. “It’s not even that they think it’s easy or something, they just assume we can do anything once we’ve reached a certain level of skill. It’s not like we magically become immune to status effects or something!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, there are ways to remove the risk.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure, Jem rings and Safety Bits, but they’re too pricey for us lot.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There... is another,” Damian says hesitantly, turning to pull out the Ribbon he took from his clothes when he handed them over to be washed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik’s eyes widen in understanding, “Not just sentimental then?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No.” His sheepish smile is clearer without his collar to hide behind, and he ducks his head down and to the side, looking for a wing in its absence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you could take the job then, if you’re heading that way. You could do with the gil, and then you could make a point to the guy behind it why you were the only one who took it, despite the high pay,” Erik suggests as he stands up, heading for the flimsy ladder leaning precariously against the roof.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe.” Damian’s smile is more true now, smaller, but elicited by memories of another man, who could get lost in rant after rant, but still have them all driven by unmistakable compassion and empathy. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He is holding the ladder steady as the other man descends the last few rungs when the sound of helicopters fill his ears. And as he looks up, it is all he can do to keep from shifting in his skin in automatic defence. The instinct to enhance his senses to learn of the threat almost wins out over the danger of changing without his cloak to cover the differences.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Grimoire Valentine does not know what to think about what he and Lucrecia have uncovered. On one hand, Chaos is a figure from myth, and not one with a summon materia recorded to prove it was ever anything more than that. He expected his research on the cave to produce a shrine, a hallucinogenic plant, maybe even a preserved mutated Valron. On the other hand… what they had found was intelligent, dexterous, capable of prioritisation and looked perhaps </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> like the arbiter of Gaia the legends described than the statues and idols that depicted it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It had looked through their papers, put them back in almost the same way they had been left, stolen weapons from alarm-protected storage, apparently read the labels on the materia boxes so as to take the most powerful, and even left their theft for last, perhaps knowing that it couldn’t be done as subtly as the previous ones. It had left the crystals as unobtrusively as possible, after all human attention was off them, even being so careful as to destroy the machines inducing the liquidation to let them solidify and obscure the exact exit point. Hell, the only way they knew so much about what it did was Walliams’s knowledge of how to track birds with overgrown talons.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Chaos is a myth, has always been one, but one that has persisted. Spread through blind old grandparents who saw a little too much their milky blue eyes, passing to the next generation through children too young to know the difference between dreams and reality, entering lands that forgot it with mysterious travellers, gone within a week but leaving impressions decades long.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At least, that is how it seems to many. Grimoire knows of course that it is simply old, and easy to place into tales. Accompanying the Hero of the Dawn on his doomed journey to cure the planet, giving the final push to drive the Omega back into slumber, becoming one with the Shifter and giving them their immortality, Chaos features as a character in many myths. But never, to Lucrecia’s consternation, quite central. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course, there are tellings that place it more prominently, but the protomyths the popular stories seem to have originated from didn’t. And, most frustrating of all, the few old carvings that have been found to reference Chaos don’t do so in a way that could tie them to any of the known protomyths. It had been suggested that they were simply missing a myth, and patterns in traditional Junon storytelling along with ‘the birthplace of Chaos’ being mentioned but never elaborated on supported the theory.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The helicopter shudders as it lands, bringing him out of his thoughts. It doesn’t matter whether the creature is or isn’t Chaos, or even what Chaos is. For now he needs to find it, and once it is securely contained, then he can devote his focus to the more abstract aspects of its study. He pulls his black cloak around him, tugging it out of the creases it was stuck in, and stands up to leave the vehicle.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The people of Corel surely have valuable information for their pursuit. At least, that’s what he thought before he spoke to them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were free with tips and suggestions about how to hunt the creatures native to the desert, too pragmatic not to see the benefits, but any inquiry into possible sightings of what Shinra was actually trying to track simply produced warnings and suspicion. The Corel reverence and respect for strong monsters worked against his team here, they dared not risk turning something against the town by guiding hunters to it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was one thing for a traveller or hunter to come into conflict with one through the simple nature of their desires, they had explained. But to actively hunt a specific creature without previous harm? If the team was defeated, the monster would surely take its revenge against the town. So they would not tell him how to track flying targets across a desert, and if they had seen anything of it they wouldn’t inform him of that either.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He heads to the local hunting shop, needing replacements for the weapons and ammunition the creature had destroyed and scattered in its attack and hoping for at least a little information on vaguer rumours. There are several people outside, stronger townspeople hauling away wood, sealant, insulation and ladders, and others standing behind, glaring suspiciously at Grimoire’s group.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One of the men is dressed in clearly borrowed clothes, with a wickedly clawed prosthetic. Grimoire is certain he has never seen him before, yet he feels familiar. The way he notices Grimoire and his team a little after they came in sight but before anyone else did, how the man shakes some of his wild hair over his eyes to cover the angle of his sight, even how he adjusts the too-big sandals on his feet so he could run without them tripping him up too much. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With all of this together, Grimoire, somewhere in his unconscious brain, feels he knows this man. And that knowledge is filled with strange emotions, ones he would spend hours trying to put names to if he had such time. However, Grimoire does not mention it and instead spends his conversation with the hunters politely ignoring the strange feeling, and how the other man never says a word throughout. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He leaves having teased out a bit more information on the tracking of flying targets in a desert and with an idle thought teasing at the back of his mind. He doubts he’ll ever see the man again, but still wondered if he could solve the mystery when there weren’t such pressing matters to deal with.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So here we have Grimoire's PoV, and we explore more ideas about monsters.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Communication Gaps</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It doesn’t take long for Damian to pack up to leave. His clothes are as fixed as they can be, and he pushes the referral for the Cokatolis and Needle Kiss job down next to them. The Wallaces insist on giving him a warm drink and a ride out to the foothills of the Corel mountains, and he has seen enough of their kindness to know to accept the offer. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Within an hour, he and Erik are rumbling across the desert in the noisy silver buggy Beau uses for her longer hunting expeditions. It is, Damian notes, much more streamlined and clean than the flashy vehicle Dio gave Cloud as an apology, painted a reflective silver to reduce heating from the sun and without the needless flaps. The engine, however, runs on a solid fuel and produces much more waste than the mako which powers Cloud’s buggy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They don’t spend much time in silence before Erik turns to make small talk. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you think of the description Shinra was passing around of that monster? Interesting isn’t it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Despite himself, Damian can’t help his morbid curiosity as he leans forward and asks for clarification, “In what way?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s so humanlike, but so clearly monstrous at the same time,” Erik explains. “Most humanoid monsters that have similarities, in silhouette or specific features, are clearly </span>
  <em>
    <span>imitating</span>
  </em>
  <span> humanity. Hell,” he leans back to gesture with his arms more freely, “You cut open even something as close as a Pollensalta and nobody could mistake what you find inside for something human. But,” his eyes take on a more considering glint, “What the Shinra guy described was more like a human body warped into something monstrous, rather than a monster warped into something humanoid.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” Damian says, pushing his immediate reaction down in favour of a more neutral one.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So what I’m thinking is that Shinra’s gotten into something </span>
  <em>
    <span>old</span>
  </em>
  <span>, like real old. An’ I’m wondering how long it’ll take before it blows up in their faces.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re so certain it will?” Damian is torn between horror at such a close guess being made on so little information and fascination at how people viewed experiments such as him before the fact that Shinra created them was well known.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“O’ course, I haven’t lived in Corel as long as I have without knowing when a monster’s smart enough to turn the hunters into the hunted, and opposable thumbs are a sure sign. No, what I’m wondering is what’s more important for it to ignore them so thoroughly.” He seems to catch himself there and closes off the speech. “But it’s a long ride through the desert to listen to my wild theories the whole time, so I’ll refocus on the driving, huh?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Damian takes a drink from the water by his seat to mask his expression, and he thinks he’s got it under control enough to give a convincing small smile by the time he has to put it down. “Yes, I can’t imagine navigating this terrain is easy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looks out over the endless rolling dunes and redoubles his effort to keep the voice in his head out of his earshot. He can’t imagine Chaos has anything good to say and doesn’t think he could keep his reaction discrete enough to avoid arousing Erik’s suspicions.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He only relaxes his mental pressure after he is far enough up and around the Corel mountain to be out of sight from the desert but, to his surprise, Chaos doesn’t push out to speak. His mind remains unnervingly silent, all the other beings inhabiting it lying dormant: within reach, but dormant. The only activity is Galian Beast, having been sleeping with the rest of his less powerful Limit Breaks, but now stirring, nose catching the faint scent of blood in the cold mountain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He turns to follow the trail, knowing that if an animal is hunting on a mountain this deep in snow a bird of some sort is probably involved. He feels his mindset fix, hands twitching for his gun, brain calculating how much ammo he has, how much he can afford to use, setting aside quantities for emergencies of varying severities. He can’t quite manage to justify removing the highest level, Sephiroth, from his precautions.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He walks lightly on the snow, gold sabatons replaced by snow boots with a larger surface area, as he approaches the source of the smell. He opens his mouth, draws air in to scent, following the instincts in the corner of his mind, his head lowers, lining up invisible horns. He realises what he’s doing just as he comes in sight of the injured Needle Kiss, and his horrified jerk out of a behemoth’s hunting posture startles it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It scrambles to fly. He knows he can’t lose such an opportunity. He fires his gun. Its wings stutter once, before stilling for the last time. He spends some time just standing there, running through his training and changing his stance until it is one of a human once more. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I suppose I have become even more monstrous than I realised.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Erik’s words echo through his mind </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Hell, you cut open even something as close as a Pollensalta and nobody could mistake what you find inside for something human.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He knows his physiology has been changed, knows that the baseline vital scans Tuesti had ordered gave results far outside the bounds of human. He knows that his mind and reflexes, honed to use every advantage his limit breaks gave him, aren’t entirely his own anymore. But this, this unconscious adoption of monstrous thought processes, feels like an unforgivable loss of control.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Perhaps it was brought on by stress, perhaps it was due to Gaia’s intervention in the balance of power in his head, perhaps it was always only a matter of time until it happened. Perhaps it will pass, perhaps it will forever be there, perhaps it will keep getting worse. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thinks of grotesque specimens floating in mako tanks, how even those that survived had no more mind than any other beast. His mind produces memories of Azul the Cerulean, killing without thought, able to take hits and shake off bullets like they were nothing, last words full of laughter as he declared his loyalty to an empty cause. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Damian forces himself to move forward and begin butchering the bird before it fades into the Lifestream. Feeling a faint pressure at the edge of his mind, Chaos’s version of asking to be heard, he is struck by a burst of irritation, and lets him in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>She wanted to help.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>The Galian Beast, she saw you were hunting and wanted to help.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He reaches back into his mind, looking for signs that …she... was awake, but finds nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>I don’t think it was a conscious action.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is that all it is?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Does it matter? She knew how to walk on snow and you didn’t.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Is that all you care about? What can help you?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>I don’t see the point in caring about anything else at this point. </b>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I suppose it would be too much to ask for a monster to have a moral code.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <b>Why are you so fixated with ideas of monsters? There are those that would help us, and those that would harm us. Even in the latter category, all that matters is whether their opposition can be removed with force or words.</b>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You are a simple beast, Chaos.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>With that parting statement, Damian closes the opening he made and stands up from the fading body. Some investigation around the area suggests it was injured by a Search Crown it then defeated, the slowest of a mixed flock. They wouldn’t have gone far, food too scarce to waste energy running away from a predator so easily avoided.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He reevaluates the yield from the single Needle Kiss and decides on his strategy. He walks as he was trained by Turk instructors, and hides with methods honed on long partner missions with Veld. His hand never leaves his gun, and he never stops deliberating on the best vantage points for various purposes in the forest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He leaves behind a patch of blood-soaked snow, scattered with half bitten feathers, surrounded by light pawprints. There is an odd depression in the fresh snowfall when it is found, and the direction of the few undoubtedly human footprints is never understood. It doesn’t take much more than an overactive imagination to piece a horrific scene together.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By the time he is in contact with humanity again, the passengers on the not-yet broken Corel railway are full of the story of the terrifying creature Shinra awoke in an old shrine to Chaos, that developed a taste for human blood. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He sighs and adjusts his plans to account for higher public scrutiny, burying the whispers in the same place he left the rumours that followed Deepground’s defeat. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Erik Wallace, I'm afraid, did not learn tact from his wife.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Point of View</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Eloy thinks the tall man in the red cloak is kind of weird. He is very tall, and his legs are very long. His shoes are also really pointy, which looks uncomfortable to Eloy. Where does he put his toes?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She looks up at Luis, sitting on the smallest Chocobo, Peck, and considers asking him about it. On one hand, Luis nearly always knows stuff like that, stuff that adults are too busy to explain properly, even if he is wrong sometimes. On the other hand, Luis looks like he is thinking really hard right now. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He told her he was listening to the adults talk while his Mum was rocking him to sleep, and heard something about a monster in the mountains. He didn’t want to talk about it any more, but Eloy is getting pretty good at listening to adults herself, and heard that it had big claws and teeth. Eloy thinks it sounds pretty scary, and that’s probably why Luis didn’t want to talk about it, but she’s got a really big stick now to fight it off if it attacks, so she’s not scared of it anymore.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So she could ask Luis to explain about the shoe thing, but he might be thinking too hard about the monster and not be able to talk. Or she could ask one of the adults, but they’re all busy and worried trying to keep all the stuff together and not lose anything. Or… she turns to look at the tall man, she could ask him herself. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He would know if his shoes were uncomfortable the best after all.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Mind made up, she picks up Hazelnut from Peck’s tail feathers and sets off to talk to him, gently placing the Mu into her shoulder bag as moral support. She has to dodge and weave through a few pack-Chocobo to get to him, and has to focus hard to find the best path. She has to focus so hard, in fact, that she doesn’t notice the rock in her path until she trips over it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Her hands come out in front of her automatically, but she’s only just registered how sharp the rocks underneath her look when she’s caught around her middle. The hands that catch her are really strong and solid, but obviously not used to catching people, putting her on her feet gently, but not knowing how to let go without making her stumble. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Looking up, she sees it’s the tall man who caught her and he’s still there, with his arms out like she might fall over again. Well, as Dad always says, no time like the present.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How do your toes fit in there?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” The man straightens up immediately, before seeming to realise how hard it was to hold a conversation with such a height difference.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Your toes, how do they fit in your boots? They’re so pointy.” Eloy clarifies. “And pick me up so we can talk better.” She orders, not wanting to wait until he comes to the conclusion on his own.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, okay.” He looks a bit taken aback, but reaches down anyway, taking a moment to get the correct grip, and settling her on his hip. Now that she’s close up she can see his left arm is covered in gold… or is gold? She can’t tell.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Seeing that she’s still staring at him expectantly, he explains, “Well, the boots aren’t actually that narrow where my toes are, they taper off into the point a little past them.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So they’re just normal shoe shaped, with a pointy bit added on.” She nods to herself and adjusts her bag so Hazelnut can enjoy the new vantage point too.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I… suppose so,” he says, looking bemused. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Moving on to her next question, she asks, “What about your arm? Is it made of gold or is it just covered in it?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I…” Whatever he had been about to say is cut off, as he twitches, looking back at his cloak in alarm.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s just Hazelnut,” Eloy tells him, leaning around his body to see where the errant pet went. “He’s a Mu, they’re from the eastern continent.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She finally catches sight of Hazelnut as he reaches his apparent goal, on top of the tall man’s head. Reaching up to grab him, she misses her dad’s approach.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Ah, Damian.” He says, voice tinged with laughter as he sees who has settled himself on apparently-Damian’s head. “While I’d love to leave you to play with Eloy and Hazelnut, I’m afraid it’s your shift at the head of the caravan.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” Damian answers, “Please would you…” He carefully slides Eloy round toward her dad, clearly unsure how to handle the changeover.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She takes pity on him, and scoops up Hazelnut, putting him in her bag before reaching for Dad’s shoulders. Dad, naturally, catches her gracefully and pulls her to his chest, waving the hovering Damian off with a smile.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So, what do you think of him?” Dad asks, with a tone of gentle curiosity.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“He has very pointy boots,” she decides, after a little thought, “And he told me how they work, and Hazelnut likes him. I’m definitely telling Luis all about what he said when Luis finishes his thinking.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The children are terrified of him, Damian can tell. Well, not Damian, not the quiet, awkward hunter their parents let follow along with the caravan, but the monster, Shinra’s prey. He hears them whispering among each other, scared-determined in the way only children can be, collecting sticks and rocks and setting guards around Luis, the smallest of the group. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t knowledgeable enough about children to know how much is performative or play; He doesn’t know if this is imitation of their parents or doubt in their abilities. He hopes they don’t do anything too reckless though, he may not want to hurt them, but monsters rarely have any consideration for the age of prey except how it pertains to meal size.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He sets the small, grey one-man tent at the edge of the caravan’s camp, grateful for Erik’s generosity and determined waving off of any protests with a ‘you can pay us back when you get back’. This way Damian can keep up his cover as a seasoned hunter without resorting to theft.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t sure if he’ll use the tent for its intended purpose, too used to silent, dead wastelands to fall truly asleep with the constant small sounds, movements and other changes going on outside. It fits his cover though, never mind how the children claimed it to be ‘too dull’ and ‘in need of a little colour’. He thinks he caught the word paint in one of the hushed, kneeling discussions between parent and child.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He isn’t sure if he should let any prospective scheme go through, or keep the stealth factor of the plain grey. But.. grey isn’t a camouflage colour here, before any moss or ground cover was dead and torn apart by desperate animals and monsters, leaving bare grey stones littering the countryside. He smiles despite himself at that, that small reminder that the dying world he adapted his skills for is no more, and he can see long fern shadows cast on his tent walls.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <b>What do they look like?</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <b>The fern shadows, they look like something but I can’t tell what. Waves? Or rolling hills?</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>They don’t have a consistent enough silhouette for that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Then what have I seen, that looks like a fern, endlessly curling into itself?</b>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Endlessly?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <b>Never mind, it doesn’t matter.</b>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He does his best to put it out of his mind and at least get to a restful frame of mind, if not fully asleep. He listens to tents rustling with the wind, footsteps stumbling in the dark, soft wingflaps in the distance and quiet murmurs around him. He listens and feels vibrations in the ground, the thumping of feet, the rise and fall of breaths, the constant shiver of the anchor lines and tries his best not to see them as threats.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Constantly he reminds himself, this is good, these people are safe, you’re protecting them. They’re protecting you, with a gathering so large no predator would risk attacking them. These hunters are not the ones you know, the ones that would risk being killed for not dying of starvation, the ones that would conserve every last bit of MP for a single spell to shatter the night and cover their escape.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Not that these aren’t capable of that. Not that such tactics wouldn’t be more reliable in a planet this much stronger, that could support regeneration at even faster speeds. Not that starving isn’t always a threat, especially in a winter as cold as this. The starvation that fuelled those tactics wasn’t unique, was it? Couldn’t that connection, that jump in evolution happen anytime?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>No. He was being irrational, falling into his fears without even noticing the fallacies. He should focus on something else. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There, in the next tent, the children don’t seem to have fallen asleep yet. The little girl, Eloy, is leading a discussion, treating it with all the borrowed solemnity and copied mannerisms she can muster. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They were talking about him… well, Shinra’s Prey, which they seemed to have taken as a title or name, rather than the vague description it really was. He listens for as long as he can bear, about their childish plans to defend the tent they’d persuaded their guardians to leave them in. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They keep pausing, waiting or just asking for approval from Luis, the smallest child, who never replies, hasn’t even said a word throughout. Too scared, he thought, damning Chaos and Galian Beast but mostly himself, for being so monstrous to terrify a child like that, for relying on such creatures, for being careless enough to let others see. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He finally leaves the tent when he notices the way his hands are gaining a light layer of fur, and how his neck prickles with hair much thicker than human. Slipping out of the tent, he heads to the edge of the copse of trees the camp is set up in, far from the children and the watchman, to try and calm down.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>This distance, this deliberate suppressing of his greater senses and resolution not to listen to his instincts, is what means he doesn’t notice the Bagnadrana until the children start screaming.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Children are pretty fun to write! Skewed priorities and innocent perspective go brrr</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Reflection and Refraction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Damian doesn’t know how he gets there, his mind, roiling with guilt and self-blame, had gone blank the moment he recognised the sound. It was a familiar sound, awfully so, of children aware far too late that their play had become deadly, that the imagined threat was now horrifyingly real.</p><p> </p><p>He faintly registers his vision changing colours, the night coming alive with scents, his ears beginning to flick and swivel. He barely notices branches and undergrowth flicking against his skin as his body moves without him. His awareness blurs, frozen at the sound of the screams. He can taste fire in his mouth, the only thing that could still feed on forests frozen for lack of decomposers.</p><p> </p><p>Reality returns to him in a rush, when he feels blood trickling down his forehead. The Galian beast has taken over almost completely, but doesn’t hold on when he shoves himself to the forefront. He finds himself standing hunched over, pulled down by the weight of the Bagnadrana impaled on his horns.</p><p> </p><p>He can hear a commotion somewhere in the direction of the camp, but the specifics fade as he forces the transformations down. He’s so focused on it, on ridding himself of fur and claws, he doesn’t realise the natural progression of it until the limp corpse drops off his now-retracted horns to lie in a crumpled heap on the ground. </p><p> </p><p>It is this that brings him back to his senses, enough to act at least. His mind slips into a Turk mindset, establish an alibi, hide evidence, <em> plant </em> evidence, find a reason to remove the threat without arousing suspicion. It’s easy enough physically to slip back to his tent once he’s set the scene for discovery, though his emotions scream against it.</p><p> </p><p>It's almost torture to wait in the tent for the hour or so he needs to support the idea of him sleeping through the commotion. It's with a feeling of relief he leaves a note at the permanent camp shelter and spreads Chaos's wings to fly, relief and the first stirrings of adrenaline-crash jitters.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>*</b>
</p><p> </p><p>He reaches Costa del Sol in the morning, wings and MP exhausted from the controlled, low flight needed to stay stealthy across the local flatlands. He drops down by the Shinra Villa, doing his best to adjust his appearance while he slips through the bushes and winding little paths threaded across the grounds.</p><p> </p><p>Costa del Sol is not quite active this early, at least not on the surface, but the smell of fresh bread permeates the air, drowning out the seaweed-and-fish from the coast. His sabatons clink against the cobbled streets, not as quiet as he would like them to be, but too dented and bent for him to hope for that.</p><p> </p><p>He's looking for a jewellery shop, on one of the alleys a little back from the largest tourist streets, but still catering to them all the same. The owner promised, well, a fairly average reward for such a hefty job, but the money would take him far.</p><p> </p><p>His stomach growls. He- has been running himself ragged. He wouldn't be able to make the flight across the ocean to the Northern continent if he tried, and any boats he could hire would only leave on a later schedule.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a big storm brewing just off the peninsula and sailors are waiting to see which direction it will travel in, which route it will block. He thinks he could fly through if it went north, but not without difficulty and possibly being spotted too exhausted and MP drained to turn back.</p><p> </p><p>He sighs, he, no matter his internal struggles, needs to do this, and do it well. He can't risk missing something or failing to completely destroy the Calamity. He will deliver the feathers, book passage on a boat, and have a meal, he has the time to spend.</p><p> </p><p>Yes, the spiced bread in that bakery smells good, he should remember it... to come back… feed well...</p><p> </p><p>He starts, suddenly recognising the thoughts as not his own. The Galian Beast. Influencing his thoughts. </p><p> </p><p>Wanting to eat bread. </p><p> </p><p>This didn’t happen before, not without significant emotional or physical duress. Did the time travel do something? </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Gaia could not tell which parts of us were which. They wanted their champion, in body and soul, strong and recovered. We are all much more balanced now. Though the others are still finding their way to the surface.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>He swallows and forces himself past the window, his destination is just a few storefronts down. He will get this done, and worry about it later. </p><p> </p><p>He is almost startled by the bell that rings behind him as he opens the door. Not quite enough for a flinch or a reaction outsiders might notice, but his concentration is broken enough for his sabatons to break free of the careful control he had them under and screech against the tile floor.</p><p> </p><p>The person hunched over behind the counter looks up in surprise, their long braids jumping around their face. They carefully place whatever delicate piece they were working on aside, and very visibly school their expression into a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“I apologise for my rudeness, this is rather early for me. Hello, and welcome to Jewels of the Sol, how may I help you?”</p><p> </p><p>Feeling vaguely disturbed by the mechanical greeting, Damian shrugs the sack of feathers off his shoulder. “I- I’m turning in the order for feathers?”</p><p> </p><p>They change almost immediately, false smile dropping and a more relaxed air coming over them. “Sure, great! I wan’t really expectin’ a taker this soon, so I left the featherworkin’ kit in the back. ‘Ang on a moment while I get it.”</p><p> </p><p>Even more taken aback, Damian is left in the store, standing nervously between massive locked glass cases. He hesitantly walks forward, looking around at the displays. One in particular catches his eye, the shelf full of various adornments wrought from the small interlocking stones he recognises as having come from a Grangalan’s eye rings.</p><p> </p><p>They rarely form a complete circle, too big for easy wearing, though there are a few necklaces, but he can see how the gentle curve would compliment the shape of an ear or a wrist or a dress. Some pairs are even separated, he can’t imagine how much careful work had to be put into those clean breaks, to make sets as two halves of a whole.</p><p> </p><p>He glances to the next shelf and sees that it, too, is monstrous in origin. Several little sculptures from Beachplug shells sit on the glass, intricate shapes carved out from the infamously tough substance. Although, when he looks closer, there isn’t much carving at all, most of the detail is created with paint and the natural patterns within the shell and tools seemingly only used to drill small holes.</p><p> </p><p>When the shopkeep comes out of the back, they immediately head toward him.  “’S a bit traditional for Costa del Sol, makin’ things out o’ rubbish from the beach.” They stop beside him, and when they next speak it’s a little muffled by the bag of feathers. “‘S why I ordered these, figured if I can make stuff with Beachplugs and Grangalan, I can make stuff with Cokatolis and Needle Kiss.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d think people would be more hesitant to buy jewellery made out of monsters.” He wonders aloud, watching them pull the bag onto the table. </p><p> </p><p>“Oh, sure, ‘f I advertised it I’d get a whole different clientele.  But I don’, I mean most o’ these people will never get close enough to a monster to know, so I dunno ‘f it really matters.” They pull out a particularly long and iridescent Cokatolis feather. “‘S all about the presentation, y’know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Like your accent?”</p><p> </p><p>They huff a breath through their nose. “Heh, yeah.” They suddenly look up from lining the feathers up by size and type, “Worked on you though, didn’t it?” And there it is again, that carefully enunciated, perfectly even tone, sending his hackles all the way back up.</p><p> </p><p>“What?”</p><p> </p><p>“The accen’ thing.” He’s still confused, so they go on, “I keep two, one ‘at’s seen as casual ‘nd friendly, and one that’s more formal, the kind of goal most people reach for when suppressing an accent.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s a bit easier to swallow, the switching, when framed like that, recalling Turk lessons about changing registers. But to see a civilian do it, so seamlessly and casually, is more than a little jarring. He doesn’t know how he would be expected to reply, so he asks the question he has on his mind, “That’s a lot of work. I don’t see why you would need to.”</p><p> </p><p>They lean back on their chair, feathers in neat piles “Like I said, presentation. Customers ‘re more receptive to the other one, but I know more’n a few who’d run screamin’ if I tried it on them. ‘Nd you’ve definitely relaxed more when I’ve used this one.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the same principle in the jewellery then? Rare and unusual stones to the customers, skilled craftsmanship and future business to monster hunters, but only if they’re prepared to see it.” </p><p> </p><p>“‘Nd many other angles ‘sides. You can never tell exactly how a gem’ll reflect light, but you c’n set it so it’ll mostly be in ways you like.” Another snort. “‘course, you gotta know ‘ow other people’ll like it too, ‘f yer gonna sell it.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s heard similar sentiments before, about context and priming and manipulation of perspectives, but hearing it here, now, from a civilian jeweller’s mouth feels different. It’s a fact of life and their career to them, not a different way of lying.</p><p> </p><p>He leaves the shop with a heavier gil pouch and swirling thoughts. He pauses by the bakery Galian Beast liked and… He looks at the bread, clears any changes from his mouth and nose, breathes in a scent that feels flatter, but no less appetising and asks himself. Would he want to eat it on his own? His first instinct is no, he isn’t quite in the mood for those spices, but if he changes his tongue, keeping a tight hold so nothing else slips through… </p><p> </p><p>He spends his first gil in this new time on a still-warm loaf, and heads for the sea to sit on the shore and eat it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm characterising Behemoths, and Galian Beast by extension, as basically cow-wolf-hyena things. Galian just wants to make sure Damian's getting all his nutrients, it's important to eat your greens for a healthy coat!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Interpretations and Inferences</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm writing just a little bit slower than a chapter a week and my backlog's running low, so updates may have to slow down for a bit.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Lucrecia throws herself at the squishy sofa, grabbing the coffee cup sitting on the side table and taking a deep breath of its aroma. She’s exhausted, having pulled an all-nighter organising the sighting reports that flooded in from communication terminals across the area over the last night.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She takes a long drink from her cup, sighing. Seriously, Chaos didn’t have a confirmed reliable sighting since it appeared, and then every campsite across the north of Corel Area heard giant wings in the night. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>One or two claims would have been dismissed, but these gave her theories a lot more weight. The Shinra higher-ups weren’t so sure about the funding and resources dedicated to tracking the thing, more interested in the unique mako forms found in the cave, but this clearly purposeful movement following fairly closely to human roads and paths made it more interesting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So interesting, in fact, that she feels she had a good chance to persuade the staff of the Shinra Villa to let her look over the security footage. It was heading in this direction, after all, and following paths that ran right next to the villa. And such a vicious creature, with such claws and teeth and that fast a movement speed, well, it would have to be dealt with as soon as possible.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Never mind that it never hurt anyone, never mind that it was less hostile than most monsters in the area, never mind that she had no intention of killing it. She was not above lying and exaggerating to achieve her goals, and if it became a problem it would be easy to convince the ones really in charge to look past it if she couched her excuses in the benefit of the company.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sure enough, it didn’t take much to get her hands on the footage from the outside cameras, and what she saw was interesting indeed. Well, more what she didn’t see. Because Chaos, this massive, multi-limbed, crimson red creature was hiding from the cameras. And what’s more, it was doing it mostly successfully.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It takes some time and careful examination of maps and time stamps to get even the slightest clue of its path through the grounds. She can just barely see it in bushes rustling a little more than their neighbours, in shadows subtly darkening, in the slightest flash of red and lightning-quick glint of gold.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Another cup of coffee and a short power nap later, she manages to piece together a path almost perfectly calculated to avoid detection, one that takes into account human sight lines and camera blind spots. One that would have hidden any human flawlessly, and only failed thanks to Chaos’s bulk and her carefully methodical search.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That, and the camera laid out by pest control to try and find the entrance the newly-established colony of bats were using to get into the villa roof.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She’d found it after tracing the probable landing point, based on her predicted path and its clear knowledge of how to avoid security. She’d just intended to have a look, to try and find tracks or the deep gouges she was sure those massive claws would leave upon landing too hard, but as she was investigating the dirt she’d seen the camera glinting in the weak late morning sun.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The footage was low-quality, aimed and set to capture silhouettes, but there was one clear frame, of the figure just touching down on the roof. Its wings were spread to slow the descent, obscuring most of the figure, but there were two horns visible, kinked strangely at sharp angles but lacking any clear breakpoints.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The camera also just caught it reaching out with a hand to stabilise its jump down, and that too was different. The arm in the footage was thinner, with no visible claws or spines, and the edges were ruffled as if it were a long sleeve pulled back. The wings were the same ragged, flowing things and its eyes were the same luminous red.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Interesting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She assembles some highlights of the footage to send to Grimoire, as well as pictures of the irregular scraping found on the roof. She won’t jump to conclusions without him, and he cautions her not to, but the advice he sends back, to ask around sailors and fishermen for winged shapes and stowaways, at least proves they are thinking along the same lines.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She leans back and winces as she feels her stomach growl. She really ought to get something more than coffee in her. Well, delegation is an important skill, and she can probably even get her food covered in the budget as ‘ingratiating self to the locals for information gathering purposes’. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And those seaside street food stalls looked extremely appetising last night.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She is just licking the last drops of syrup from her fingers when Lucrecia sees him. A hunter swathed in a red cloak sitting on the edge of a pier, hair bound in messy spikes above his head, one arm a golden prosthetic and the other with a pink ribbon wrapped around it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He turns and looks at her as soon as she gets within a foot, despite how the crowd and the sea should have drowned her footsteps out, and his eyes are a piercing red. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Interesting.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She turns her attention down, looking at the gun he has disassembled in his lap. It’s a long-barreled, rifle, but most of her gun identification knowledge relies on what they look like outside. She does notice a lot of padding and sealing around the edges of the more delicate components, more so than most standards would expect, so it’s that and her projected flight path that she bases her guess off.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s a nice gun, Corel make?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Y- yes.” He responds, sounding slightly strangled.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She doesn’t think she’s leaning that far into his personal space but takes a step back anyway. Having trouble adjusting to a thinner profile? The man does seem improbably skinny. In fact, the only person she’s seen with that kind of height-width ratio is... Grimoire… </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She realises he’s waiting for her to talk and obliges. “Are you a hunter?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Of a sort, yes.” At the questioning glance she gives him as she sits down, he goes on. “I’m hunting monsters for money to travel with, but I don’t know if I’ll continue once I’ve reached my goal.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Just going to set up a living where you land?” She asks, slightly incredulous.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, Icicle Inn is supposed to be a nice place to settle down in.” His tone has a note of sad amusement.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So he’s going north. Not that she’s heard any rumours of the sort he mentions, but the words have a greater weight to him than for her. What sort of knowledge must he have, as old and ageless as the myths claim?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She can’t help but press further. “Seems like a bit of a waste, stopping now with so much life still in front of you. Don’t you have a greater aspiration?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His smile turns bitter, self-deprecating. “I suppose that’s the problem,” he says under his breath, before raising his voice. “I’ve never wanted more than protecting my loved ones. And there’s nothing more I can do for them once my journey is completed.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Eternal life, the problem? She can’t wrap her head around it, though an alien outlook is to be expected. And there’s something more about his goal. To put his loved ones to rest? A pilgrimage? A burial? The destruction of what killed them? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She looks across at him. The pale winter light bouncing off the low waves sends long shadows across his face, only heightening the ill-healed scars of sorrow that show within it.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She can’t remember anything in the myths that lines up with this, the only major associates of Chaos to die in the myths were the Healer and the Hero, the Healer being avenged and laid to rest in the destruction of the Undying Angel, and the Hero succumbing to illness with his duty left unfinished.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Well, myths are a natural enough topic when speaking about death, “They died?” She asks, aiming for a sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry for your loss. I... don’t know what to say. There’s a saying that I’ve found helps me a little.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“A saying?” He asks, at least a little curious.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, it was found carved into stone in one of Shinra’s digs. Only one human may live forever, and he would curse every day for it. Or something along those lines, it was very literally translated.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His face is pale now. It seems she’s struck a chord.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But now she wonders. Do the original myths (prophecies?), pieced together from recent archaeological finds and traditional folk tales, tell of past events or future ones?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Of course Chaos was awakened in that cave just a week or so ago, but he looks to have a clear knowledge of what the saying refers to.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He seems to have collected himself. “Only one? That seems... overly specific, aren’t there many myths that describe immortal humans?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, that’s the interesting thing! If you look at the roots, the protomyths, you only find a couple of base myths, and even then they can be broken down into two.” He’s interested now. Well, guess her thesis was useful for something! </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Depending on how you break it down, you’ve got the basic ‘immortality as a metaphor for fame and going down in history’, which is boring and not actually about immortality, so that’s not a contender.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He snorts a laugh at this, something strangely fond in his face. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“But there’s also the traditional consequences of immortality myths,” she goes on. “The ‘hubris of man’ angle, where they reach immortality but are also eternally trapped in some form of suspended animation, the ‘tragic love’ story, where one party becomes immortal but the other doesn’t, and the  ‘humans have limits and should obey them’ one that focuses on the aftereffects of the immortality, how the immortal isn’t human any more and eventually goes insane.” Each of the titles she gives the myths are accompanied by air quotes, as interesting as she finds the anthropology and scientific implications of them, she’s never quite seen eye to eye with the morals. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Buuuut if you look at the commonalities, Chaos having some important role within almost all variants, often as a wish granter or his captured power being the crucial ingredient, and the process involving three steps before the final correct solution.” Her mind starts to race, there’s a thought at the edge of her mind if she can just get ahold of it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“We even found an ancient extract that referred to the steps, </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> they can be tracked to the versions found in most the major retellings!” She feels the connections start to fall into place.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve got the Behemoth that corresponds to the plain durability and toughness most first steps are about, but doesn’t protect from sickness, the reanimated corpse that follows the straight-up defiance of death most second steps are, but doesn’t self-maintain, and the scarecrow that’s the third’s animation of things that were never alive, but doesn’t have the power to keep going on its own.” And that, thinking about the stages as failed experiments, feels eerily similar to the lecture Dr Gast gave about the current failings of created life.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh-oh-oooh! And with the more recently documented Nibel variant, that has the immortal, Chaos, and whatever gave the immortality separate entities, you can reconcile the conflicting consequences of the major stories!” There. That’s what she’s been missing! It was scientific!</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“So maybe the original myth, perhaps originating in the Nibel area, had </span>
  <em>
    <span>two</span>
  </em>
  <span> immortals, one in love with the other, so they were blind to how the other was using them to test the immortality. Once it was perfected with the addition of Chaos, the creator used it on themselves, but were imprisoned for their hubris.” Her toes drum rapidly against the thick wooden pole of the pier, but she’s too caught up in her realisation to notice.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“The victim then, as the subject of the ancient saying, wandered the planet alone without their love, going mad from the strain of living forever and the consequences of the imperfect experiments!” She almost shouts the last bit, the pieces falling into place. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The way it echoes across the sea brings her back to her senses, and she finds herself staring directly into the face of probably-Chaos, gold bleeding into his irises and crimson red crawling up the back of his neck in defiance of the sheet-pale of the rest of his face.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Me planning this bit: So this scene will be a good chance for the characters to interact as strangers without-<br/>Lucrecia: I've figured it out<br/>Me: What?<br/>Lucrecia: *pointing at Damian* That guy's Chaos<br/>Me: Well.. yes but-<br/>Lucrecia: I know this now and you can no longer think of any variation of this scene that doesn't have me realising it<br/>Me: But- *sighs* *adjusts plan accordingly*</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Unnerving Inferences</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I updated the tags in light of future chapters, not this one. I was on the fence about them with the Valron and Bagnadrana scenes, but I think that by the point you're describing death throes, you've fallen off the fence well on the side of warning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Damian doesn't remember leaving, he doesn't remember what excuses he made or which direction he left in. All he can recall is the terrified rabbit-run of his thoughts, already set on edge by Lucrecia - young and happy and passionate and this is the woman he fell in love with all that time ago - but sent almost past coherence by her enthusiastic breaking down of his mental and physical state.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But… no. She wasn't. His mind clears as he leans against a wall, breathing hard, limbs somehow heavy. She wasn't looking at him, she wasn't looking at the vague character archetype of the Shifter, or even Chaos. She was following her own logic. She was following the same steps that could lead to another falling to that same curse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No. She wouldn't. She was desperate back then. He could just remove the sources of stress. Grimoire was still alive, his research changed course to follow the mysterious winged entity. There would be no argument, Lucrecia would never be so vulnerable to Hojo. Vincent Valentine would never have to walk into that room unaware of the gun and the greengreengreen</span>
  <b>RED.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>RED</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Red</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>red</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He snaps back to the feeling of his twisted left arm being squeezed, the uneven plates of gold armour pressing in at strange angles, and sound loud in his mind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Vincent!</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Damian’s sure Chaos knows to call him Damian by now.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>You weren't responding. I had to take control of a hand.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looks down and, sure enough, the grip on his left arm comes from his right hand, only slightly reddish but pockmarked where Chaos’s spines would grow in. He wrenches them away from each other, letting them hang loosely by his sides as he takes stock of himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His limbs still feel stiff and resistant, but some prodding with his mind puts them entirely back under control.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>You were panicking. We had to restrain your muscles to stop you from running there and then without any care for keeping a low profile.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We need to get them off our trail. We can’t risk this happening again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had been willing to let Shinra try to follow him, sure of his ability to hide in plain sight as a human and aware they could never hope to defeat him without SOLDIERs. He had thought his skill was enough to stay ahead of them and avoid being killed or worse, but these flashbacks were a risk he cannot take.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Perhaps a false trail? Even if they were tracking our movement this entire time, Costa del Sol is the easiest way to cross between the continents, Western or Northern. </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>With how much fuss they’ve kicked up about catching us, enough civilian sightings will put pressure to send an entire team immediately. They won’t have room to split up if we play our cards right.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>I could manifest more limbs. Arms and spikes won’t appear well in silhouette but an extra pair of wings or a few more tails should ensure they would be believed to have seen something and couldn’t dismiss it as a bird or a known monster. </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And this calms him down some, strategising with a partner. He’s still tense and still feels the effects of his flashback, but it feels better to do something about it. He’ll move on, get some space and finish his mission. He can worry about it once that’s done, once there isn’t the threat of Jenova hanging over him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Grimoire clicks his tongue in frustration. Chaos has been spotted heading west across the sea. By tourist boats and high-society cruise liners no less. The rumours, previously mostly limited to hunters and travellers in the area, have spread much further, buoyed by the fanciful exaggerations of descriptions the apparent witnesses gave.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The higher-ups have started to put pressure on his team, eager for a simple and quick resolution to stem the rumours and keep Shinra’s reputation afloat. It can’t be getting around that mako somehow has harmful properties, or that there are somehow creatures tied to it, the power source needs to appear reliable and consequence-free for the company to keep growing the way it has been. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Grimoire is no longer sure that that’s the case, looking over the data they took from the cave. He’s not quite an expert. He first specialised in cultural views of magic, before his investigation on how that could be used to better understand its exact nature led him to this job. But Lucrecia is and, though much more absorbed in the being they're calling Chaos, she gave him some tips on how to interpret mako readings, all of which tell him what they found in the runoff from the melted crystals is at the very least anomalous in all the worst ways.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had been meaning to ask her opinion on it last night, but she was rather excited writing up a new theory, only pausing to breathlessly mention that she was certain Chaos was headed north. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He would have pressed her for more, but he had never known her to be so caught up in an incorrect conclusion. Though now, with these clear sightings, her conviction seems a little dubious.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Or… could that be the purpose? The creature has shown itself to be quite capable of stealth, displaying an excellent understanding of human sightlines, managing to stay almost entirely unseen in its flight across the Corel area. There is no reason it should suddenly lose the skill that allowed it to trace a flat, well-travelled road in a night with only tales from lookouts about strange flapping noises to mark its presence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And the footage from the Villa, which clearly displayed a much smaller form, added to Chaos's frequent association with shapeshifting, suggested something that might even be able to pass for human in the right disguise. What was there to say it didn’t have an equal mind? There was many a documented case of intelligent monsters.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That… unsettles him, more than a bit, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it. They weren’t trying to kill the thing, after all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The most important thing, right now, is that it is more than likely the sightings to the west are a false trail and that the team will have to set off for their chosen continent in just an hour. He doesn’t like his chances of convincing his superiors that the correct path is to the north on just a hunch like this, not without revealing far more about a possibly sentient creature’s habits and skills than he’s comfortable with.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His PHS beeps with a notification sound, and a few carefully recited shortcuts later he’s looking at the private message function.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Shard of the Crescent</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>      Hey, do you remember where that paper tracked the origin of</span>
</p><p>
  <span>      the ‘wisdom of the imprisoned moon’ trope to?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It seems Lucrecia’s changed her handle again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The Nibel-Cosmo-Wutai trade loop, I believe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why the sudden interest?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     I’m looking at some possibilities, nothing you need to be </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     worried about yet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If this is connected to your hunch about Chaos’s destination</span>
</p><p>
  <span>it might have to be. Some rather crowded passenger ships</span>
</p><p>
  <span>have seen it flying west.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     West?!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I find it odd also. It has shown much more thorough stealth</span>
</p><p>
  <span>in the past. I believe it is laying a false trail.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Guess he was pretty spooked by all the Shinra presence</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     He’s definitely going north though</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He? Lucrecia must have come across something big.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     We’ve just gotta find a way to prove it then!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     (*•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Without the method you used, I assume?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What... is that?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     It’s an emoticon! They look like faces!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     And no, I’m not letting anyone else in on </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> yet</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>If one looks with the right eyes, I suppose. I’ve grown resigned to Lucrecia’s mindset of science for her own gratification first and everyone else to be caught up at a later date. She’s undoubtedly a genius, with a strong drive to learn as much as she can, she just doesn’t care about doing anything with that knowledge other than proving it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
  <span>We’ll probably need to have a whole team, buy </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     some specialised equipment and hire a few local guides </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>So we must have a convincing argument as to why the Western  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Continent would be a waste, not just a reason to send a few</span>
</p><p>
  <span>people up north, if we’re to get that sort of budget. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Discrediting the sightings?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Never mind the moral implications, we’d still be left with</span>
</p><p>
  <span>two equally promising options.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Making false northern reports?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>We’d still have the western ones to contend with. Ones that</span>
</p><p>
  <span>are, in all likelihood, correct.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Then how do we get around that?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I suggest not arguing the sightings at all. They do seem to </span>
</p><p>
  <span>be right and are easily verifiable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If we have some reason for it to have detoured, that would </span>
</p><p>
  <span>mesh with known information and not contradict our own</span>
</p><p>
  <span>theories, should we choose to share them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Something that would force him to take a </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     different path?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     There aren’t many obstacles in the sea…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Do you have access to weather reports?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     Oh! I see where you’re going with this</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Hang on a mo</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I too will check what I have to hand.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It takes a bit of shuffling around of papers, losing any semblance of organisation they had in the process, but he finds forms for the </span>
  <em>
    <span>request</span>
  </em>
  <span> of weather reports. The process is mostly virtual, a lengthy process on a terminal but the instructions seem clear enough to follow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s almost finished with it, peering closely at the small black text on the muddy beige background, when he is taken off guard by the loud beep of his PHS. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Vincent Valentine</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>     There have been rumours around HQ of your mission</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I take it that means you won’t be able to meet up for dinner?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mission</span>
  <em>
    <span>. Like it’s more than just a job. Like it’s more important than my own son. This is no matter of life and death, as much as it makes me uneasy. Perhaps a conversation with him will help me clear my thoughts. And he has been stressed lately, settling into his new position as a full Turk, maybe a break and a change of scenery will help.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not at all. You might have to come and meet me though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>     Where? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>     I’ll see if I can make it</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Grimoire smiles and glances at the terminal screen. The weather report contains a warning at the top. A warning to all personnel to avoid travelling between the Eastern and Western continents via Costa del Sol, as well as a strict ban on aerial testing on their northern coasts. It seems a fierce storm has blown up around there, large enough to even have mild warnings on passage to the north.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It seems our chase will bring us to the Northern Continent.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Tell me if there are any formatting errors I missed, things got a little messed up when I pasted it over to ao3.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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